Positive and extensive intergroup contact in the past buffers against the disproportionate impact of negative contact in the present

By Stefania Paolini, James T Harwood, Mark Rubin, Shenel Husnu, Nicholas Joyce, Miles Hewstone. 2014

181 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Negative (vs positive) intergroup contact may have a disproportionately large impact on intergroup relations because of valence-salience effects, whereby negative contact causes higher category salience (Paolini, Harwood, & Rubin, 2010). One correlational and three experimental studies in three conflict areas (Northern Ireland, Arizona's border area, and Cyprus; Ns = 405, 83, 76, and 91) tested the moderation of these valence-salience effects by individuals' histories of outgroup contact. Consistent with a perceived fit principle valence-salience effects of face-to-face, television-mediated, and imagined contact held among individuals with negative or limited histories of outgroup contact; these effects were significantly reduced or nonsignificant among individuals with positive or extensive past outgroup contact. These moderation effects suggest that positive and diverse intergroup contact in the past buffers against the harmful effects of negative contact experiences in the present, thus limiting the potential for negative spiralling of intergroup relations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c20c9d9528e6f395d90c4a851929effd7ef0815c

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Citations in the corpus

Direct, extended, and mass-mediated contact with immigrants in Italy: their associations with emotions, prejudice, and humanity perceptions (2017, result): “In line with this moderate optimism, recent findings further suggest that the effects of negative contact episodes may be attenuated by the existence of positive and extensive contact in the past (Paolini et al., 2014).”
Seeking and avoiding intergroup contact: Future frontiers of research on building social integration (2018, background): “…al., 2005), faster physiological and endocrinal recovery after intergroup stressors (Page‐Gould, Mendes, & Major, 2010), and reduced attentional biases for intergroup differences after negative contact (Paolini et al., 2014; for additional moderators, see table 2 in Paolini, Harris, et al., 2016).”
Positive and negative intergroup contact: Interaction not asymmetry (2018, methodology): “…on contact valence has studied groups with an explicit minority status); (iv) furthermore, we build on previous work into asymmetry effects (e.g., Paolini et al., 2010, 2014) by exploring the simultaneous roles of group salience during positive and negative interactions, and we extend work by…”
Consequences of Diversity for Social Cohesion and Prejudice: The Missing Dimension of Intergroup Contact (2015, background): “, 2012; Ziller, 2014, respectively) and experimental (see Outten, Schmitt, Miller, & Garcia, 2012; Paolini et al., 2014) research, respectively.”
Does negative contact undermine attempts to improve intergroup relations? Deepening the understanding of negative contact and its consequences for intergroup contact research and interventions (2021, background): “…reported stronger effects of negative than positive contact (Alperin et al., 2014; Dhont&VanHiel, 2009; Graf et al., 2014; Labianca et al., 1998; Paolini et al., 2010, 2014; Techakesari et al., 2015; for firstmeta-analytical evidence see Paolini & McIntyre, 2018), others found no substantial…”
Whites for racial justice: How contact with Black Americans predicts support for collective action among White Americans (2018, result): “The relatively weak effects of negative contact are also consistent with other work showing that prior positive contact can encourage positive intergroup outcomes even in light of negative intergroup experiences (Paolini et al., 2014; Reimer et al., 2017).”